source: purchased
title: Nights in Rodanthe
author: Nicholas Sparks
genre: contemporary romance
pages: 212
published: 2002
first line: Three years earlier, on a warm November morning in 1999, Adrienne Willis had returned to the Inn and at first glance had thought it unchanged, as if the small Inn were impervious to sun and sand and salted mist.
rated: 5 out of 5

blurb:
Adrienne Willis is 45 and has been divorced for three years, abandoned by her husband for a younger woman. The trials of raising her teenage children and caring for her sick father have worn her down, but at the request of a friend and in hopes of respite, she’s gone to the coastal village of Rodanthe in North Carolina to tend the local inn for the weekend. With a major storm brewing, the time away doesn’t look promising…until a guest named Paul Flanner arrives. At 54, Paul is a successful surgeon, but in the previous six months his life has unraveled into something he doesn’t recognize. Estranged from his son and recently divorced, he’s sold his practice and his home and has journeyed to this isolated town in hopes of closing a painful chapter in his past. Adrienne and Paul come together as the storm brews over Rodanthe, but what begins between them over the weekend will resonate throughout the rest of their lives, intertwining past and future, love and loss.

my thoughts:Nights in Rodanthe is a re-read for me. After hitting a mini reading slump with the mystery book I was reading, I decided to grab something I knew I would enjoy to try to get back on my reading track.

There is something about a Nicholas Sparks book, they are definitely comfort reads for when I am in the mood for romance with heart. They are the literary equivalent of a cozy cup of hot chocolate and freshly baked cookies. According to Goodreads, I first read Nights in Rodanthe in 2010. I really enjoyed it the second time around.

“Despite all that had happened in the years that had passed since then, Adrienne still held tight to the belief that love was the essence of a full and wonderful life.” – Nicholas Sparks, Nights in Rodanthe

My favorite Sparks novels center around middle-aged couples like Adrienne and Paul. In this one these two are both at a crossroads in their lives. Adrienne’s husband left her a few years ago for a younger co-worker. She is raising three teenagers on her own and works part-time at the library after being a housewife and stay at home mom all her married life. She still grieves the loss of her marriage and throws herself into working and being a caretaker leaving no time for herself.

source: purchased
title: The Five People You Meet in Heaven
author: Mitch Albom/ Twitter
published: Hachette Books (April 7, 2003)
pages: 196
first line: This is a story about a man named Eddie and it begins at the end, with Eddie dying in the sun.
rated: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars

blurb:
Eddie is a grizzled war veteran who feels trapped in a meaningless life of fixing rides at a seaside amusement park. His days are a dull routine of work, loneliness, and regret.

Then, on his 83rd birthday, Eddie dies in a tragic accident, trying to save a little girl from a falling cart. He awakens in the afterlife, where he learns that heaven is not a lush Garden of Eden, but a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five people. These people may have been loved ones or distant strangers. Yet each of them changed your path forever.

One by one, Eddie’s five people illuminate the unseen connections of his earthly life. As the story builds to its stunning conclusion, Eddie desperately seeks redemption in the still-unknown last act of his life: Was it a heroic success or a devastating failure The answer, which comes from the most unlikely of sources, is as inspirational as a glimpse of heaven itself.

In The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom gives us an astoundingly original story that will change everything you’ve ever thought about the afterlife–and the meaning of our lives here on earth. With a timeless tale, appealing to all, this is a book that readers of fine fiction, and those who loved Tuesdays with Morrie, will treasure.

my thoughts:The Five People You Meet in Heaven is one of my daughter’s favorite books. After she read it in school she raved to me about it and insisted that I read it too. I read this one quickly and now I can also add it to my list of favorite books as well.

Blurb:Every so often a love story so captures our hearts that it becomes more than a story-it becomes an experience to remember forever. The Notebook is such a book. It is a celebration of how passion can be ageless and timeless, a tale that moves us to laughter and tears and makes us believe in true love all over again…

At thirty-one, Noah Calhoun, back in coastal North Carolina after World War II, is haunted by images of the girl he lost more than a decade earlier. At twenty-nine, socialite Allie Nelson is about to marry a wealthy lawyer, but she cannot stop thinking about the boy who long ago stole her heart. Thus begins the story of a love so enduring and deep it can turn tragedy into triumph, and may even have the power to create a miracle…

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Nothing on these pages is available for download without my express consent. My reviews are my honest thoughts and opinions. I am under no obligation to write positive reviews.
The photos on these pages are all my own unless otherwise stated.